After last Christmas, it occurred to us that most of the kids in the family are grown now – some even married – so it might be a good time to revisit how we handle Christmas gifts and keep spending under control. What we decided to do was go to a Secret Santa system for anyone over 18 who wants to participate while letting people shop however they want for the kids.

Having never organized a Secret Santa before, I immediately started digging (that’s what I do) into variations to determine how we wanted to do this thing. It did not take long to find tools that make this whole process easier.

The one we have settled on is Boogspace’s Secret Santa Generator. It is free and offers everything we needed. It allows you to add your list – along with special features to control for people who should not be shopping for each other – and have the drawing and notification (by SMS or Email) done right from the standalone tool. Nobody has to register on the site — not even the organizer. (more…)

In celebration of the release of the 10 millionth page of Chronicling America, our free, online searchable database of historical U.S. newspapers, the reference librarians in our Serials & Government Publications Division have selected some interesting subjects and articles. We’ll be sharing them in a series of Throwback Thursday #TBT blog posts during the next few weeks.

Today we not only celebrate our 10 millionth page of Chronicling America, but we honor the patron saint of the Internet, the humble feline. You think people are obsessed with cat videos today? Here are 10 high-profile newspaper stories concerning the not-so-common house cat.

Archives

Categories

Image Information

All images included in blog posts are licensed directly from the rights holder or are from out of copyright public sources unless otherwise noted. Common sources include the Library of Congress, The Flickr Commons, Wikimedia Commons, Pixabay, and other public archives. If you suspect a rights-reserved image is used here, please mail us and let us know which image you have questions about.

::sidebar-ad::

Get New Posts By Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.